Friday Nov. 26, 2004 (including Thanksgiving dinner) View Friday's Pictures
On Thursday following tea with roommate Michelle we went to the store and picked up food for Thanksgiving dinner. Michelle went to the IES Thanksgiving dinner which had been arranged for the kids. We cooked a chicken, mashed potatoes, beans and corn for a version of a Thanksgiving feast. Friday morning Susan and I went out for some "clean up" of our touring. We took the audio tour of Westminster Abbey first. Westminster Abbey was first built as a Benedictine Abbey and was ready in time for the coronation of William the Conqueror as King in 1066. All of the 48 or so monarchs have been pretty much baptized, married, crowned and buried from there since. The church has changed hands from the Roman Catholic to Anglican Churches as has England. The tour was fascinating with many chapels and monuments to this or that. The second tour on Friday was of Winston Churchill's war cabinet room. His war cabinet occupied a secret bunker that occupied a corner of the basement of the Whitehall Offices. Mr. and Mrs. Churchill actually lived there during the war. Much of this space had been locked up in 1945 and recently was opened as a museum space. There is even a cigar butt in an ashtray on Churchill's desk!
Following this tour we did some shopping, had lunch, stopped in a pub and went back to the apartment to rest up for the play that night. We saw a bit of the Museum of Natural History then met up with Laura to go to the play. We had dinner in a tapas restaurant before the play. The play, "Fame" was great. It is a musical about the high school for the performing arts in New York. We got out of the play at 11 and London was still jumping! We took the tube back to our apartment then put Laura on the bus back to her place. Tomorrow we'll spend most of the day getting home.